Brexit: The Prime Minister Speaks

So Mrs May has come back from Salzburg empty-handed.

Brexit-watchers can hardly be surprised. The Northern Ireland border was always going to be a tough challenge if the Good Friday Agreement was going to be honoured. As was finding a modus vivendi with the other 27 EU nations unless it was going to be on the basis of the Single Market and Customs Union. The impossibility of squaring the circle is the right metaphor. You can find as good a match as you want, and you can get closer and closer an infinite number of times. But you can never make the circumferences or areas exactly equal. It all comes down to π.

Salzburg is Mozart's birthplace. Its name literally means the Castle of Salt. Well, the EU leadership has certainly gone through the PM's Chequers proposals like a dose of salts. How she must have wished for some Mozartian Magic Flute to come to her rescue, confer wisdom, protect her against her foes, lead her into the right path! Instead, negotiations on these two critical points have reached an impasse. The EU is clearly in no mood to bend to her wishes. So she has no room to manoeuvre unless she compromises on both of them.  And as she keeps reminding us, there is no Plan B other than to crash out of the European Union with no deal.

The Prime Minister has just spoken to the nation. The robust tone was consistent throughout her short speech, the Leitmotif being "we cannot accept...". Some of her red lines will find ready agreement across the nation, such as "we cannot accept the break-up of the United Kingdom". Of course not. But as everyone can now see, this is a non-trivial risk for the Union, especially those who live and work in Northern Ireland. I don't suppose many people foresaw this when they voted Leave in 2016. Like the false prophets in Jeremiah, the cry was "peace, peace, where there is no peace". And the cavalier way some leading proponents of Brexit are ready to treat the Good Friday Agreement is both breathtaking, and desperately sad.

But what about her opening "we cannot accept"? She said today, "we cannot accept anything that does not respect the result of the referendum". This begs so many big questions, all of which have been fully rehearsed in the two years the nation has been debating the consequences of the vote. I don't want to plough in well-worn furrows. We were reminded ad nauseam by Brexiters that Parliament is sovereign, and this includes its powers to rescind what has been decided in the past - which is precisely why the referendum and Parliamentary endorsement of it was to reverse the decision first made by the nation in 1975 to confirm our membership of the EU (with the strong support of the Daily Mail - newspapers can change their minds too!).

Add to that the clear proviso that the referendum was advisory to Parliament, and it really won't do lamely to appeal to the referendum result as if it were set in stone like "the laws of the Medes and Persians that can never be revoked". This is immature politics that devalues the intelligence of voting people and infantilises them. In a democratic society, we are free to change our minds, and frequently do at general elections. As I've said, the second EU vote was itself a change of mind following the first.

There's one more issue here, and I recall writing about it in an earlier blog. We know that the majority of elected members in Parliament were for Remain. Not just by a margin of a few percent like the UK electors, but a really significant majority. The point is this. If these MPs believed in 2016 that it was in the interests of the UK to stay in the European Union, what changed with the referendum result? Remainer MPs should be principled enough not to sacrifice their convictions on the altar of a public vote, especially when it is as close as the result was two years ago. They are not delegates who must vote as instructed by their constituencies. They are independent representatives who, having regard for the views of their constituents, nevertheless are free to vote, and indeed must always vote, in accordance with what their conscience tells them is in the national interest, without fear or favour.

What has happened in Parliament that even our Prime Minister, who is undoubtedly a woman to whom principle and conscience are important, is enslaved to this theory that the referendum result is inviolable and sacrosanct? Yes of course, to act with integrity, to follow principle and your own conscience in the face of fierce and loud opposition does take courage. It is fatally easy to be compromised when the stakes are so high and the pressures very great. And who appreciates the demands that are placed upon political leaders in times like these? I'm not at all defending the PM's approach to Brexit when I say that we can all feel for her in these ordeals she faces, not only among her EU colleagues, but (especially, I think) the brutal EU-psychodramas that the Conservative Party has enjoyed acting out for so many decades now. "Bastards", John Major called the far-right Tories when it came to Maastricht. You get the point.

I'm not expecting the PM to read this. But if by chance she were to, here's what I'd want to say to her.

1. None of this fiasco was of your making. You were landed with this poisoned chalice by your predecessor. Having promised he would see the consequences of the referendum through, he promptly walked away from his duty. I wonder how he can sleep at night.

2. Most of us do not want Brexit to be a disaster for the nation. We want you to succeed in your negotiations, not just to get the best deal for Britain, but what is best for Europe too, in the spirit of friendship, understanding and peace-building that is why this EU family exists in the first place. We want to go on being friends, partners and allies of the EU27. To crash out would sour relationships that are immensely important not only to our immediate neighbours and ourselves, but geopolitically too.

3. Don't underestimate how big a loss the UK's leaving the EU will be to the twenty-seven. It's not just the four freedoms or our payments into its budget. It's about the real and deep partnerships that have been so carefully built up across areas such as security, science, culture, environmental care and medicine as well. EU leaders are not punishing Britain for leaving, but they are sad about it, and that helps to explain some of the tough rhetoric coming out of Brussels. The parting of friends is always painful, and we are seeing this being acted out as we watch.

4. Please don't make our nation the laughing-stock of Europe and the world. What happened at Salzburg was humiliating, not just for you personally but for all of us who love our country and count ourselves fortunate to be British. Negotiation is what grown-up people do when things get tough. Whatever comes of Brexit, it needs to be with our dignity intact. I'm very much afraid that we have lost stature in the world during these past two years. Maybe that's good for a nation, not to think of itself more highly than it ought to think. But if it's respect that we've forfeited, shouldn't that make us think carefully about the course we've embarked on? I hope so.

5. Please, please, consider it possible that you may be mistaken about a People's Vote. I am no enthusiast for referenda in a representative democracy, but once that genie is let out of the bottle, you can't put it back again. I think the cry for a third referendum (not the second - that's what 2016 was) will become unassailable in the coming months. Please, please, consider letting the nation, especially its young who were disenfranchised in 2016, speak once more, with the option of remaining in the EU on the same terms as we currently enjoy. After all, if Brexit is really what the UK wants, then Brexiters have nothing to fear from going round the tracks in the light of what we have all learned in the last two years. Minds change, not because people are fickle or wayward, but because circumstances change and new evidence emerges. Previously unknown information, newly assessed risks, clearer perceptions of what Brexit would actually mean, all this comes from the intensive scrutiny Brexit has been subjected to in the last 27 months. Such a triage is a good thing. I'm sure you welcome it. I believe you have the courage to ask the nation in a People's Vote what it now believes about its future in the light of what it now knows. Don't be afraid.

6. It may be small comfort, but I want to assure you that the prayers of people of all faiths are with you. And the thoughts of many more.

Not a Good Week

It's easy to love your country when things are going well. Later today there will be an outburst of patriotic pride in either France or Croatia. What if England had won the World Cup? How Mrs May must have longed for some good news to mitigate the effects of her septimana horribilis. Anything to make us proud to be British once again.

I admit I'm struggling with my patriotic duty right now. Not with the concept, for I'm clear that we ought to love our country not because it's better than anyone else's, but because it's ours, it's where we live and belong. (Just as we ought to love our county or city, our village, neighbourhood or town - belonging ro our own "place" should engender a sense of gratitude and pride and concern for its welfare. In classical thought, this attitude was called pietas, the recognition of what we owe to the dust that bore us, shaped us and made us aware, to echo Rupert Brooke's great poem "The Soldier".)

No, it's not the idea of patriotism that worries me, but how hard it is to put it into practice at times. I'm thinking of occasions when you have to say, patriotic love is not because of but in spite of - in spite of the follies being committed in our name, in spite of the disregard for moderation and common sense that is being shown, despite the cavalier attitude being taken by our leaders to the future welfare of the nation.

Yes, it's back to Brexit of course, and how the current government is (not) managing it. This past week has thrown our national dilemma into sharp relief. First came the Chequers agreement that at first looked like a welcome step back from a hard Brexit or from a fatal crashing out of the EU altogether. For a few hours, the cabinet centre held. But not for long. Two big resignations later and it's clear that "things fall apart". The administration is all at sea (just as the UK will be, shorn of its European moorings). Even magical thinking can't save the Tory party from polarising and possibly breaking its back on the shoals of Brexit.

Then, when things could hardly get worse, President Donald Trump landed on our shores. It was an ill-fated invitation if ever there was one, hardly calculated to raise the Prime Minister's standing in the world and enhance her dignity. His insulting Sun interview disparaging her leadership and rubbishing her approach to Brexit was beyond belief. When I read it, I felt for Mrs May on the point of welcoming a visiting head of state and going the second mile in showing the courtesies due to the so-called leader of the free world. But I have to say that she brought it on herself. Her rush to invite him in the first place was already something to wonder at. The sight of her dressed like a woman from The Handmaid's Tale holding Mr Trump's hand was a toe-curling sign of submission to a domineering, capricious and cruel man. These are images we shan't quickly forget. It felt pitiful and demeaning. And no emollient words later on about the "higher than special" relationship could make up for it.

It's clear that Mr Trump despises not only NATO and the European Union, but the whole consensus on which western politics has been constructed since the last war. Never mind our damaged pride - we must live with that (and that may be good for us - being humbled often is). Far more important is what we have learned in the past few days. It's that this is a profoundly dangerous moment for the liberal democracies of our world (and that includes the USA). Mr Trump's fickle behaviour on his European tour - saying one thing to The Sun, then doing a U-turn hours later, shows that he is not a man we can safely trust. Is it a case of agreeing with the last person you spoke to? If so, his lack of stability and reliability is deeply worrying. If you don't know where you are with your closest ally, can he be said to be an ally any longer? Today the EU is lumped together with China and Russia as a "foe" of America. A leader in today's Observer asks: “Hooking our national fortunes to this caricature of a president & any benevolence he may or may not choose to show Britain” - is this what we really want?

This visit that has so humiliated our country has had the effect of throwing Brexit into sharp relief. We can now see it for what it is in the full light of day. The truth is that by "taking back control", we shall be getting far, far more than we bargained for. We shall be on our own in an ocean of indifference to our fate. The EU will not feel it owes us any favours after what the UK has put it through both before and after the referendum. The USA has demonstrated that these islands of ours are of little consequence as it seeks to "put America first". We shall no longer have the global reach and influence we once had when we pooled our sovereignty with our friends and allies in the European Union. We get the worst of all possible worlds. The much scorned Project Fear was right all along.

What our nation is on the point of throwing away beggars belief. I never had the UK down as reckless in its actions. But recklessness is the word that comes to mind now when it comes to Britain's standing in the world and how others see us. And not the least of it comes down to many of those elected members who warned all along that Brexit would expose us to dangers we needed to heed. Among these is the Prime Minister who voted Remain in 2016. If she and her fellow Remainer MPs thought then that it was in the best interests of the nation to stay in the EU, their conviction cannot overnight have been negated by a popular vote. Or if it has been, what do representative government let alone integrity and principle matter any more? To the questions we asked during the referendum campaign - What is prudent? What makes for our flourishing? What holds out the best promise of peace and justice and environmental care in our continent and beyond? - the answers given then by Remainer MPs cannot have changed just because a narrow majority claimed to express "the will of the people". (Don't let's get started on the gross folly of allowing huge constitutional change on the flimsy basis of a simple majority vote. In my view, David Cameron has more to answer for in his leadership of the nation than any PM since Anthony Eden.)

This is why my patriotic love of country is under strain at the moment, why it's in spite of rather than because of. I love Britain for many reasons, among which three stand out. First, its instinct for fairness and toleration, its temperamental stability and its innate common-sense. Second, its traditions of generosity, hospitality and welcome to incomers and refugees (but for which, as I've often said, I wouldn't be here today, my mother being an asylum seeker who found sanctuary in Britain during the Nazi era). And third, its outward-facing openness to peoples beyond its borders, its belief in maintaining strong connections across the world through supra-national bodies like the Commonwealth and the EU. All these virtues are under threat at present. In their place our great nation is turning into an inward-looking, self-interested, isolationist, bad-tempered archipelago feuding with itself while all the while losing its way when it comes to finding its place in the modern world and exercising lasting global influence.

All of which is beyond sad. For the first time in my life, I don't feel at home in this country as it is fast becoming. I am an exile in my own land, out of sympathy with the prevailing mores that turn their back on the alliances that make for our health and strength and greatness as a nation. Make no mistake: Brexit will enfeeble us, rob us of our influence, weaken our ability to make a difference in the world. From what I've seen and heard, there are a fair number of us who feel the same way, maybe over half the electorate now. Which is why the British public must be allowed a vote on the final Brexit deal that is agreed, including the option to remain within the EU. The best we can hope for is that we recover quickly from this fit of craziness that has overtaken us. If not, I fear for my children and grandchildren and the country we shall have bequeathed to them when we are gone.

No, it has not been the best of weeks. But nil desperandum. It looked pretty bleak in 1940. God can help us find our true selves again, and deliver us from the threats that ambush us. Onwards and upwards as they say. Never lose heart. Kyrie eleison.

**I have another blog exploring patriotism in relation to Brexit: follow this link.

Am I Being Unpatriotic?

Dear Michael, I begin to feel that your negativity is bordering on the unpatriotic! Don't you think that our leaders deserve our support?

That was an intriguing tweet to receive yesterday, not as a personal message but publicly. She (it was from someone I know) was responding to a tweet I'd posted that contained a link to an article in The Guardian. It was lamenting our political leaders' lack of imagination and sense of history in their handling of the Brexit negotiations, specifically the matter of the Irish border.

In the two years I've been blogging about the EU, I've been accused of many things: being intemperate, ignorant, theologically inept (yes!), and over-confident about being a Remainer. But this is the first time my patriotism has been called into question (though it's a common jibe from people who should know better that Europhiles collectively are not acting patriotically).

So let's go there. First, we need to disentangle patriotism and nationalism. Patriotism means a love of and loyalty to your homeland. In Roman thought, you owe your homeland that much simply because it bore you and nurtured you. It's an act of piety (pietas) to acknowledge your debt to the people and institutions that have formed you. This is not at all the same as saying that your homeland is better than anyone else's. It's simply yours. It's part of your identity as a human being. That's why it's precious to you. At its best, patriotism is a virtue that is liberal, humane, peaceable and beneficent.

Nationalism is different. "Hard" nationalisms survive and flourish because of an innate conviction that somehow, your nation is superior to others. This can be on the grounds of almost anything you care to name, your proud history for example, or your race, religion, intellectual enlightenment, military prowess or wealth. "Soft" nationalisms are more subtle, and not always conscious. But they are expressed by aims and behaviours such as pursuing political or economic purposes that benefit your own nation in preference to, or at the expense of, others. This tends to foster national autonomy and self-determination, where the good of a nation state is no longer understood in the setting of the wider human family. It's hard not to think that agressive flag-waving, hostility to immigrants and rigorous border controls encourage a kind of national egoism that owes more to a romantic notion of "blood and soil" than to a rational idea of what it means to be good citizens.ii

I've often written about my late mother's side of our family. She was a German Jewess who escaped from the Third Reich before the war and was welcomed as a refugee in the UK. She settled here permanently, married my (gentile) father and wanted nothing else than to live out her days in domestic tranquility. She absorbed British ways, learned to speak English free of any German accent, brought her children up to love this country as the civilised, generous nation she had found it to be when she needed rescuing. She became, I think it's fair to say, a patriotic British citizen (she would never have said "English") and encouraged us to be the same. But her keenly attuned antennae abhorred the slightest whiff of self-regarding nationalism. She was a citizen of the world and of her continent, and for this reason was appalled that her adopted country opted to leave the EU just before she died.

For me, this is the nub of Brexit. What was the patriotic thing to do when we voted in last year's Referendum? Part of the answer is surely, to think about what would be in our country's best interests, what would enable it to flourish in the future. I'm sure that most people voted in that way, whether they were Brexiters or Remainers.

But patriotism (precisely because it is not nationalism) doesn't restrict that question only to "what's best for Britain" (to quote the tiresome rhetoric of David Cameron when he tried to renegotiate the UK's relationship with the EU). It asks how the welfare of our nation sits alongside the welfare of all the nations and of the world as a whole. It plays with the conjecture that what's best for Britain in the long run will also turn out to be best not only for Europe but for the worldwide human family. What if we even entertained the thought that we should start at the other end of the question, so to speak, and begin by asking what's best for others, especially those a lot less privileged than we are? I want to say that that option, too, is a patriotic one because it sees flourishing as mutual. We only prosper in any profound sense when everyone else does as well. It's what it means to love your neighbour as yourself. That Golden Rule should have been right at the heart of the Referendum debate. It grieved me that it wasn't.

So I see patriotism as inextricably linked to our belonging, our citizenship, not only in a national sense but in a global one. Patriotism is certainly not less than loving your country (and why not also your region, your locality, the city, town or village where you live?). If wherever we call "home" is important to us, then we should love it and everyone else whose home it also is. But belonging has concentric circles. I love my European homeland and am proud to carry a passport that announces me to be an EU citizen as well as a British one. I love the planet I have been born on, so broken and divided and carrying infinite burdens of pain, yet for all that still full of beauty and goodness, so rich in the diversity of its peoples with whom it's a joyful mystery of life that we share this globe together. Theresa May was quite wrong to say that if you are a citizen of everywhere, "a citizen of the world", you are a citizen of nowhere. Patriotism means we can be glad and grateful to be citizens of many different "somewheres", all of which we can be loyal to and love, whether it's the world we live in, the nation of our origins, or the particular place that we call "home".

This is why I believe that my vote to remain in the EU was profoundly patriotic. A patriotism for today means that we must continue to strive for a peaceable commonwealth of nations and peoples that transcends national boundaries, in which our own flourishing is part of everyone else's. So was it "bordering on the unpatriotic" to question the leadership of those who are trying to negotiate a Brexit settlement with the EU? I don't think so. A grown-up democracy doesn't blindly follow its leaders, least of all when it fears it may be heading for disaster. Yes, there is a loyalty to democratic choices that is required of all citizens, whether it is the outcome of a referendum or the government we have elected.

But it can never be an uncritical loyalty. To go on questioning, exploring, doubting, challenging, being open to change in the light of new evidence or arguments - these are both the privileges and duties of all of us in a democratic society. When it comes to Brexit, the national conversation was not suddenly closed off on 23 June 2016. On the contrary, each new step forward requires that conversation to be shifted and reconfigured in the light of altered circumstances or newly understood realities. It's patriotic to want the best out of each iteration. And it would be patriotic as well as democratic if, in the light of circumstances, we decided as a nation to change our minds about Brexit. (The "will of the people" refrain trotted out by some of our elected members including many who voted Remain doesn't advance intelligent discourse in any way that I can see.)

So you can call me a member of Her Majesty's loyal "Brexit Opposition" if you like. A twenty-first century recusant even, as Tony Dickinson suggested in response to the first version of this blog. For I believe that it's not only allowable but positively necessary to monitor how such a major decision is being worked out in practice, interrogate it closely, scrutinise the performance of those who are steering it so that we can hold them to account. If I say that I just don't believe that the case has been made for Brexit, and that this year has felt like a catalogue of mistakes, unintended consequences and muddled aims, is that unpatriotic? Not if it's said out of a genuine care for the welfare of my nation. On the contrary, maybe it's those who won't engage any further in the Brexit conversation who don't care enough about what happens to our nation.

I don't accuse the good person (whose tweet started this whole thing off) of not caring. Far from it. But I did think I needed to explain myself and defend what I want to describe as a liberal global patriotism. In these times, we have to learn to construe patriotism in the largest, most international way we can. Our world is simply too small for any of us to imagine that supposedly sacrosanct national borders can still define the limits of our concern. We urgently need to cultivate a good patriotism if all life on the planet is going to be respected and conserved. Nations and peoples need to act together to solve the world’s problems. In partnerships, we can achieve vastly more than we ever can on our own.

As I see it, Brexit is propelling the nation in completely the wrong direction, towards isolationism and disintegration. That’s dangerous. It’s not unpatriotic to say so.

The Day Before the Vote: how to prepare

Tomorrow is the last day of the referendum campaign. What's the significance of the "day before"?

The temptation will be to engage in a frantic bout of last-minute canvassing, arguing, blogging and generally engorging ourselves in a social media frenzy. As someone who passionately believes that the EU is good for Britain and Britain for the EU, I'm as desperate to win the contest as every other Remainer. When the race is neck-and-neck, that final sprint to the finishing-line can make all the difference.

But I'm wondering whether to be "desperate" is quite right. If this has been a real debate in which we have been listening well and paying attention to one another (fond hope!), our campaign needs to end in a considered way. To crash into the buffers at the stroke of midnight is not how to conclude a serious process of laying bare what really matters in the decision we must make the next day.

At "Christians for Europe" we've tried to model a reflective approach to the referendum. We haven't always got it right but we have not wanted to disparage anyone, impugn their motives or shout. We've wanted to respect people who differ from us in good faith, even if disagreement has sometimes been sharp, like Paul and Barnabas in the Acts of the Apostles. If we have given offence, we are sorry. "Good disagreement" is becoming something of a mantra in faith circles, but it's precisely what we believe about how at our best we should be listening and talking to one another.

But we don't at all apologise for stating clearly what we believe, which is that Christianity requires us to have regard for the neighbour, the stranger and the needy. Our faith urges us to live together in community rather than apart. Its social theology highlights the imperatives of solidarity and the common good. This is why we believe it points us in the direction of playing a leading role within the EU, not turning our back on our friends and allies. We believe that God cares about our nation, our continent and our world. We believe that by being a leading member of the EU, our nation will have a democratic, peaceful "reach" that transcends the boundaries of Europe. We believe that it's in the interests of peace, justice and the integrity of creation that we remain and don't leave. That's an ethical, theological and spiritual position to take. It's much more than mere pragmatism.

If you follow this blog, you'll know that I've been trying to nuance that set of affirmations in a number of different ways since late last year. There's nothing more I can add at this late stage. Except, to come back to where I started: what tomorrow could mean for us. Bear with me. 

The day before the referendum, 22 June, is Saint Alban's Day. He is celebrated as the first British martyr who, when Christianity was under severe persecution, was executed for sheltering a Christian priest. The pagan Alban had been so impressed by the devotion of his guest that he converted and became a Christian himself. When the Romans came to search his house, he changed into the priest's clothes and presented himself to the soldiers. His punishment was to suffer what would have been due to the priest. Bede tells of this, Britain's "proto-martyrdom" in words that indicate how moved he was to have heard about it. 

Britain (as distinct from its member nations) doesn't have a patron saint. Alban is the obvious candidate. He embodies everything that is noblest in human nature when it is redeemed by grace and love. His hospitality to and care for someone who needed sanctuary is a powerful metaphor of one central issue in this campaign. Every Christian, every decent human being, must be alarmed at the xenophobic, not to say racist undertones of the more extreme Brexiters' discourse. The Hebrew Bible commands us unambiguously never to forget "the stranger who is in your midst". Jo Cox lived and died campaigning for some of the most needy people on the planet. Justin Welby was completely right to condemn UKIP's hateful, hate-filled poster with its sinister echoes of the 1930s. Alban shows us the more excellent way of love. What better patron saint for the British people to be proud of?

And he took this way of loving to the very end. St John says this is precisely how Jesus "loved his own". He laid down his life for a friend, just as Jesus did. If ever one human being modelled what a whole nation could be like, it is Alban. To give up your life for others is how the gospel says we must all live. What I've disliked more than anything else in this campaign has been the self-serving rhetoric of so many of our political leaders. "What's best for Britain, what's best for you the electorate" can only be part of the story, and not even the most important part. The headline ought to have been: how can this great nation of ours that in two world wars "laid down its life" for its European friends and allies suffering under the iron fist of fascism, do the same again in 2016? What's good for Europe, for the wider human family? I've no hesitation in saying that the UK has an outstanding contribution to make to global politics and the mending of a broken humanity. I unhesitatingly say that we're best placed to do this inside the EU. Alban can be our model of Britain-in-Europe.

So how shall we spend St Alban's Day? By learning from his example, I say, and trying to imitate it. In this final blog before the vote, I'm asking that we find time tomorrow to reflect on the values our faith teaches us and ask how they translate into our decision. Put it this way. The X on your ballot paper stands for two things. The first is the title of "Christ" himself (from the initial Greek letter of the word Christos, χ). The second is that it represents the cross on which he gave his life, the inspiration that led Alban to make the supreme sacrifice that he did. Your simple X on your voting slip is filled with a profound and eloquent symbolism. 

What would this Christ want us as a nation to do at this cross-roads (pun intended) in our history? I'm not falling into the trap of imagining I know where he would cast his vote - if he had been unlucky enough to have to make a choice. But the faith I follow bears his name and it leads me to believe that what I must do is to try to imitate him in his living and dying. That means I simply cannot vote only with my own interests in mind, but must think first and foremost of the millions of others in our country, our continent and our world who are very much less privileged than I am. That's what St Alban's Day unambiguously teaches me.

Here's a suggestion. Why not stop campaigning at noon tomorrow, and spend the rest of the day reflecting on the values that matter most profoundly to us? A great decision needs vigils of prayer, not just good debate; so that when we come to vote, it becomes an act of prayerful, courageous love that springs directly out of our heart and soul and mind and strength. If it calls us to lay down our lives or our self-centeredness, so be it. That's the cost of discipleship, isn't it? Alban our native British saint can inspire us to make the generous, unselfish choice. 

In this spirit, "Christians for Europe" will stop posting at 12 noon tomorrow. After that, we could get on with the day job, cook a nice dinner, go for a walk, play football, read a novel, watch a movie... anything to give our over-stimulated brains a rest for a while. Maybe even take a nap - therd could be a long night ahead. 

Oh, and it goes without saying: reflect quietly, think carefully and say our prayers. 

Which Way Will It Go? The Fears of a Remainer

Just over a week to go and I admit it: I am despondent about the Referendum. I wish I could feel more confident that the UK will vote to stay on the path of togetherness, integration and community-mindedness as a leading member of the European Union. I wish I could believe that British people are too sensible to fall for the nostalgic but dangerous illusion that we can go it alone in the modern world. I wish I could believe that if nothing else persuaded us, at least enlightened self-interest would prompt us into voting Remain.

However, I have a real fear of what we shall wake up to on the morning of St John the Baptist's Day. "We are 10 days away from making a terrible mistake" writes Matthew d'Ancona in The Guardian. He is right. We are walking on the edge of a cliff. Just a gentle nudge in the wrong direction will be enough to send us over. It could be thanks to the laughing buffoonery of a blond politician, the fluent syllogisms of a lawyer attired in a robe of high office, or the sweet reasonableness of a quiet man who never raises his voice. Just turn and look at the view, they entice us. Get a little closer so you can peer over the edge and take in how sublime the prospect is. Go on. See for yourself. It's beautiful. It's noble. It's to be desired. It's where your destiny lies. Surely it's worth the leap into the lovely fresh, clean, infinitely spacious air!

You'll have picked up the allusions to the Garden of Eden and the gospel story of Jesus in the wilderness. My point is that temptation, or "testing" to put it more accurately, rarely comes as a binary choice to do the wrong thing as opposed to what is self-evidently right. In both those biblical narratives, discerning right and wrong, good and evil, better and worse was a matter of considerable subtlety. That bears out our human experience of making choices. It's usually pretty hard, and what is obvious with hindsight is often opaque at the time. We always wish it could be simpler. 

How much more difficult it is when it comes to collective political decisions. How do we really know what's for the good when it comes to putting a cross in one of those two boxes in a few days' time? Richard Dawkins, with whom I don't always agree, said recently that he was appalled to be given the responsibility of making this decision about the EU. He said in effect: I am a professional in my field. I don't expect the public to have the grasp of the immense complexities of biological science. Why should the Government expect me, a lay citizen, to understand the immense complexities of political science? That's what we elect MPs for. How on earth can I cast my vote for or against the EU on the basis of real knowledge and understanding?

Yet that's precisely what most of us think we do know. The lack of self-doubt in the increasingly shrill rhetoric of this campaign is breathtaking. (For all I know, I may have contributed to it myself.) I've tried to listen to and learn from the arguments of serious Brexiters I respect like Giles Fraser, Gisela Stuart and Frank Field. I've been listening to IDS on the radio and he sounds plausible. But I've never seriously wavered in my belief that we should stay in the European Union. It's gone beyond the marshalling of facts and the logic of arguments. It feels more like an article of faith, just as my being British and belonging to the political union we call the United Kingdom does. And yes, my Christian Faith does have a lot to do with it, as well as my personal history and identity. I've written about all these things in a score of earlier blogs on this site. 

But if that's how it feels to me, that's also how it will feel to millions of other people on both sides of the debate. There is a quasi-religious fervour that permeates a lot of the discourse at the moment. I can see that it's dangerous for any of us to be intoxicated by our own arguments, whether we are conviction Europhiles or conviction Brexiters. I want humbly to say that I hope I could be persuaded that I'm wrong. Oliver Cromwell's words often haunt me in this as in other dilemmas I face: "I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible that you could be mistaken".  

The social psychology of decision-making comes into things of course. The views we hold have a lot to do with the company we keep. What do our families, friends, work colleagues, organisations we belong to, say about it? Or the newspapers we read, or our social media contacts? So yes, I'm comforted that all the Primates of all four British Anglican provinces have declared for Remain, so that while the churches themselves have maintained a neutral stance, their leaders have made their personal positions clear. The same goes for the vast majority of economists, health professionals, academics, educators, scientists, artists.... The list goes on and on. It could be group-think on a massive scale. But if I have learned to trust these voices in other departments of life, why would I not trust them now? 

That's all very well. I've no doubt at all that the intellectual argument has been won by Remain. The case for EU membership rests on many different premises, all of them by now stress-tested ad nauseam. But they are not winning the Referendum - that's clear too. I'd expected StrongerIn to be well ahead in the opinion polls by now. But that's not happening. If anything, the trend is in the other direction. You'd have thought the electorate would have seen through the falsehoods, discredited numbers, political naïveté, thinly disguised racism (let's kindly call it xenophobia for now) and sheer illogic demonstrated by some of the loudest Brexit campaigners. 

Which says to me: our relationship with the EU is not going to be decided by cogent argument and unassailable facts. It's much more a matter of visceral feeling, of an unacknowledged atavistic national attitude that has long sought the light of day. In the UK's collective unconscious, the "idea" of Europe is not a powerfully motivating factor as it is in some other countries. I'm one of those who thinks of myself as "European" and would gladly say so on formal application forms if it were an option. But I'm in a minority. It's nationhood that is seen as the primary claim on our loyalty. And given Leavers' worries about sovereignty, immigration, security and patrolling our borders, it may just lose us the Referendum.

Nil desperandum! There is still time for the tide to change. The public mood can still shift. But while we hope and pray for the best, we must prepare for the worst. If we Remainers have to face our own Project Fear on the day after the Referendum, let us at least plan to maintain an outward-looking global perspective and help our nation not to lose its historic identity in a narrow and ultimately fatal insularity. Come what may, we shall continue to be good Europeans. We shall help build societies where we are kind to strangers and embrace people who are different from us. We shall do all we can to save our planet for our children's children. We shall go on showing solidarity with the poor and the needy, and seeking the welfare not just of our own selves but of all humanity. 

This is what it means to love our neighbour. It's why we believed in the European Union in the first place. It's why I shall vote Remain with all the conviction I can muster.

Europa - an Archetypal Victim to Inspire the EU

This week a pro-Brexit group was reported as posting a video suggesting that the EU is guilty of "raping" its citizens. It shows a woman fleeing from a man with the caption "Rapin". The EU flag is prominent. This was roundly accused of being offensive by Remain supporters on the grounds that it made light of sexual violence.

I tweeted on Christians for Europe: "@Vote_Leave may not know their classical myths but they are good at making up their own." This prompted a furious riposte: "What about @StrongerIn's lies, deceit, distortion, hypocrisy and insidious rhetoric of #ProjectFear?" We shall miss all this sound and fury after 23 June. Or then again, maybe we won't.

What was I on about, alleging that Brexiters don't know their classical literature? It goes back to the ancient Greek myth of Europa. Have you ever wondered how Europe got its name? The story takes various forms as most myths do. The commonest version depicted in classical and renaissance art tells how Zeus noticed the beautiful Phoenician maiden Europa in the fields with her father's herds. The god changed himself into a white bull and concealed himself among the cattle. Europa was gathering flowers when she noticed the handsome bull and started caressing it. So gentle was he that she clambered up on to his back. Zeus seized the moment and darted off with her into the sea. With her on his back, he swam to Crete where she became a queen.

My point on Twitter was simple: that in mythology, far from being the (female) perpetrator of rape, Europa was herself a victim of precisely the crime Brexit was accusing her of! In the classical tradition, she is more sinned against than sinning. It's only a myth, of course. But that "only" shouldn't mislead us into thinking too lightly about its potency. Story has a power that lies deeper than facile notions of whether or not "it really happened".

So why should Europe have a founding myth that speaks about victimhood? And why should the European Union adopt the image of Europa as one of the badges of its identity on coins, stamps and banknotes? (So its iconography is a lot more than a big football league.)

I don't know that there's an easy historical answer to the question, how did "Europa" grow from its local Greek origins to becoming, by Charlemagne's time, a significant slice of a continent. But we can play with the symbolic significance of the name as we think about the EU and Britain's place in it.

I rather like the idea that the story of a victim and her ordeal should lie at the heart of our identity as a continent. The story itself is brutal and ugly. Rape always is, always, without exception. There is no defence or special pleading that can make it otherwise. The Brexit video was a shocking lapse in taste in a campaign that has not been distinguished for its sweet reasonableness and depth of serious argument. But in Christian thought, God takes the side of the victim. Those who suffer because of the abuse of power are under his special protection. This is precisely what God himself has experienced in the passion and death of his Son Jesus.

So if we take this central aspect of Europe's founding myth seriously, we ought to find ourselves looking out for all the poor Europas of our own day: the victims of all forms of tyranny, enslavement, poverty and indeed sexual violence committed against the weak and vulnerable. You could say that Europa was the original trafficked slave who was seized against her will and made to dance to the tune of a violent, depraved master. That she was transported across the wine-dark seas of the Eastern Mediterranean only adds to the contemporary resonances. Wherever we see desperate migrants, refugees and asylum seekers looking for a place to call home, we see echoes of the Europa myth. We see images of Christ suffering in all who bear the mark of pain.

In terms of our continent and next month's referendum, what does the story say about the European Union today?

It's not hard to mythologise the threats that will continue to face the EU, whether we are part of it or not. I think there are two powers that threaten to overwhelm the Union in the future and which could all too easily "abduct" Europa and carry her off to strange, alien places or even destroy her altogether. The two words are separated by just one letter. I mean rationalism and nationalism. By rationalism I'm not thinking of the capacity for rigorous analysis, argument and thought, one of Europe's great legacies to the world through the Enlightenment. It's the deadening effect of being closed off to the spiritual inheritance of our continent that I have in mind. It was a sad day when, despite the pleas of faith communities including the Holy Father himself, the preamble to the Maastricht treaty consciously omitted any mention of the part religion has played in shaping Europe. It ignores the vast contribution made by Judaism, Christianity and Islam to the values and ideals of the EU. It's an ominous sign that the EU could be taken over by the kind of doctrinaire secularism that is opaque to the redemptive dimension of a religious vision and a lived faith.

The other threat, nationalism, is easier to see all round us in the populist politics of 2016. Patriotism and nationalism are not at all the same thing. I've constantly argued that it is a fully patriotic choice for this and every other nation to pool sovereignty in the interests of promoting the common good. It is good for nations and peoples, good for the continent and good for the human race. We should love our patria, our homeland. We owe it our loyalty. But it's not the only loyalty we have. What isn't good is to collapse our belonging down to the nation state as if that were an end in itself. This is the mantra of far-right movements across the continent not least in Greece, Hungary, Austria, Germany, the Netherlands and France. It should worry us that vast numbers of people are giving up on the idea, so fundamental to the Christian founding fathers of the European Project, that we are "better together". To me, the slogan "we want our country back" is deeply sinister. It's an omen of a fragmented future that goes against everything I believe about what it means to be human and to live together and flourish in community.

The antidote to both nationalism and rationalism could be to think more carefully about the Europa myth. If she is the archetypal victim, then her story can perhaps empower us to resist the intellectual, political, cultural and spiritual tyrannies that threaten to carry us off and enslave us today. It begins, I think, with our own consciousness of who and what we are, and the dignity with which we are invested as creatures made in the image of God whose service, as the Anglican collect says, is "perfect freedom". One etymology of the name Europa is that it means "having an open face". This is why I believe our future lies in the European Union, because we want the UK to be a nation that is outward-turned, generous and inclusive in a Europe that has an "open face" to the world, and especially to its victims.

To vote to remain in the EU could be an unafraid act of joyful liberation, the very opposite of the gloomy worries that plague Brexiters. It could confidently proclaim that there is a better vision of humanity than any we have yet found. The Europa myth could inspire us to reimagine it.

A Sixth Form Debate about the Referendum

This week I went to an academy in our part of the world. They were holding a sixth form debate about the EU Referendum and asked me to put the case for Remain. Arguing for Brexit was a businessman from a place I know well. We had lunch together before the event and found we had a lot in common, not least a love of France. I don't think he would mind my saying that he struck me very much as a Europhile like me. Lesson number one: in this as in most things, there is much more that unites us than divides. He was certainly one of the nicest Brexiters I've met. And although we didn't agree about the EU, it was what they call a "good disagreement".

The school has a fine campus with state-of-the-art modern buildings. Some of the students had just begun A-levels that day which was a pity as they were historians and I'd have liked to have heard what they had to say. The room we were in was bedecked with national flags from all the EU countries which gave it a festive air. A member of staff chaired it in the best tradition of BBC's Question Time. She was scrupulously fair with her stopwatch at the ready.

I began by saying it was a pity that 16 and 17 year olds wouldn't be allowed to vote as their peers had been able to do in the Scottish independence referendum. I expected loud cheers at that, but it just got a respectful silence. Maybe this young audience was a bit shy. Or listening carefully, which they did all afternoon.

If you read my blog regularly, you'll know my "pitch". I asked the audience not to be beguiled by self-interest, the "what's best for Britain" line. It mattered, I told them, but only if our self-interest was enlightened. I begged them to try to see the decision from a global perspective: what's best for Europe, what's best for the human race, especially its most needy members and communities, what's best for the planet in terms of tackling climate change. I urged them to think as Europeans, not grudgingly but out of a conviction that the UK can play a leading role in the EU by helping to reform it and make sure it remains outward-looking in its concerns.

My opposite number spoke for Brexit and, I have to say, did it with humour, courtesy and tact. Then there were questions from the audience. We knew what these were going to be in advance but it was clear that the students had been well prepared for the event in learning about and discussing the EU for much of the summer term. There was one I especially liked about the EU's role in the post-war reconstruction of Europe and was this still relevant today? (No prizes for guessing my answer.) We talked about what it means to hold both a European and a British identity (to which I added English, North-Eastern, Londoner, Haydonian etc.).

Do the economic benefits of EU membership outweigh the costs, we were asked. Thankfully no-one mentioned the discredited £350M per week figure that many Brexit people are still touting despite having been told not to (it even appears on the Electoral Commission's information leaflet about the vote to which both the official campaigns were given the opportunity of contributing). We discussed the nature of risk-taking in connection with In or Out, and (interesting, this) how it compared to religious faith and the place of doubt. We explored democracy in the EU and agreed that reforms were needed to make it more transparent and accountable (although, I added, reforms are needed in the UK too and we should be careful before we throw stones).

It was a pity we didn't have time for more. But the school day ends when it ends and not even the EU was going to deflect the students from the school gate. So a vote was taken. And here was a surprise. After discounting a handful of spoiled papers (by A-level students? surely not, you cry!), it came to just over 50% in favour of Remain, and 43% for Brexit. So that was that. It was a majority, but not a convincing one. It would have been interesting to have taken one before the debate to see if anyone's mind had been changed.

I've thought about that vote. It reflects uncannily accurately the opinion polls across the country which predict a "yes", but not by a wide margin. And here's where I take pause. We are told on all sides that young people are overwhelmingly in favour of our membership of the EU. That wasn't true on Wednesday. So is it connected to the demographic of that part of the world? Or just down to the feebleness of my attempts to persuade whether by impeccable logic or dazzling rhetoric? Someone criticised the school on Twitter for "brainwashing" the young. I replied: you just try brainwashing politically astute sixth formers who in any case heard both sides of the argument. I took from the afternoon that they were not yet really convinced. So there is a lot of work we pro-EU campaigners have to do in the next few weeks.

One last point. As well as being told that the young are in favour of Remain (perhaps because they've never known life without it), we are also told that the challenge will be to get them out to vote. There are still hundreds of thousands eligible youngsters, many of them students who have not yet got their names on to the electoral register. This ought to worry us greatly. Time is running out. So I begged these 6th formers not to let their older siblings and peers off the hook. Their parents too. Our democratic rights are hard-won. To use them well by voting is the first lesson of citizenship. If they heard nothing else, I hope that message went home.

The Referendum: in defence of campaigning with conviction

In the 1980s the broadcaster Bernard Levin wrote a booked called Enthusiasms. It gave him an excuse to write about all the things he loved in life: music, landscapes, food, cities, books, friends... In it he writes: "To be passionate in a cause provokes widespread embarrassment...[which is] to set off the squealing and tittering of those whose motto is 'surtout, Messieurs, point de zèle'."

In today's Guardian*, Jackie Ashley laments the lack of passion on the part of those campaigning to keep the UK in the European Union. She accuses them (us) of being lacklustre, taking our cue from a Prime Minister who has famously said that he doesn't "love Brussels". "The repetition of the very vague 'safer in' message isn't cutting through. It's too bland; frankly too boring." 

She is not wholly correct, but right enough. The Remain message has largely fallen into the trap set for it at the Brussels summit (how long ago that seems). The renegotiation of the UK's membership was hailed as a game-changing triumph, but of course its scope was pretty narrow. All along the message of the UK's special status was: "what's best for Britain, what's best for you the voter". That was an invitation to pander to self-interest. And those have largely been the rules of engagement in this campaign: will we be better or worse off as a result of Brexit? will our global trading position, our employment prospects, the security of our borders be disadvantaged one way of the other? The discourse has been largely utilitarian and pragmatic. What's been lacking is real conviction that the EU project could be a Good Thing with ideals that are worth believing in for their own sake. 

This very English (rather than Scottish, Welsh or Northern Irish) way of thinking is not altogether unworthy: self-interest is natural enough, and best of all when it is enlightened and not merely self-serving. The PM's issues are important and aren't to be dismissed as of no consequence. We all know that there is a lot wrong with the EU. But a utilitarian politics can lack vision and ambition. Laodicean luke-warmness doesn't touch the imagination or fire the soul; it doesn't stimulate our aspiration to help build a better world. It doesn't have anything to say about the huge challenges that face the human race such as climate change, terrorism, peace-making and the global economy. It doesn't raise questions about governance and democratic participation. And it risks falling at the first hurdle for people of faith which is: how shall we build a more compassionate and socially just world where we ask "who is my neighbour?" - or, as Jesus turns it round in the Parable of the Good Samaritan, "to whom am I required to be a good neighbour?"

Well, I am one of those who wants to campaign for Remain with conviction and, yes, enthusiasm. It's partly a political and cultural conviction that I have. For as long as I've been alive, I've felt European in my bones. I owe a lot of it to my German-born mother and grandmother who had both suffered under the Nazis, and instilled in me a mistrust of thinking merely nationally about my identity. They taught me to love Bach and Rembrandt and Voltaire and Dante as much as Virgil and Shakespeare because they all belonged to my birthright. They encouraged me to learn foreign languages. They helped me travel and see the world. So now, when I am in continental Europe, I feel virtually as at home as I do in my native country. Because that's what it is to me, my native country. I'm proud that my passport has European Union emblazoned on the floppy Burgundy cover. I don't want my European identity to be stolen from me against my will.

But the other side of my conviction about the EU is related to my Christian faith. Religious belief is not just a matter of cognitive assent. The heart matters as much as the head. I am a Christian because I have been touched by something that is bigger than I am, that has transformative, life-changing power. Therefore, what flows out of my Christianity - its intellectual, ethical, social and political consequences - is also a matter of conviction. I believe we should do the right thing, or the best thing, out of loyalty to our faith. And in the case of the EU, that means for me the appeal to our nation to participate for the sake of the common good, take a lead in a community of peoples whose aim is the betterment of life for its members. This includes solidarity with the disempowered, voiceless and needy. It includes our resolve to be part of a family whose achievements in peace-seeking, reconciliation and environmental change have given real hope that together some inroads against these challenges can be made. And it has to be together. To revert to pragmatism, there's no room in today's world for nations to go it alone when the threats we face cross every national frontier. We can't afford to be without the EU and other alliances that will help safeguard us all. 

Our movement "Christians for Europe" believes that the tag #StrongerIn reflects not a depressing preoccupation with self-preservation so much as what the EU as a family of peoples can become, and the contribution our nation can make to the EU. It's heartening to be told by our EU partners that our country is the second most influential member of the Union after Germany. We shouldn't underestimate what our membership means to them, and the possibly catastrophic effects a #Brexit might lead to across the continent, maybe its eventual dissolution. The ill-feeling and resentment would last for decades. But Britain is famed for its fairness, its neighbourliness, its care of those who most need help, its kindness, its breadth of outlook, its tolerance and generosity of spirit. And its perseverance in not walking out on commitments when things get tough. These are virtues we can be proud of because they can and do make a real difference to our friends with whom we share our common European home. I don't think it's a coincidence that the Britain that has nurtured these qualities is an historically Christian nation.

What are the rewards for the UK if we vote #Remain, as I hope we do? I won't rehearse the material or cultural benefits, though I think they are real enough. No, for me, as an IN-thusiast, the best reward will be to think that we are committed to being a leading player in a unique family of nations. It will be the recognition that we have as much to give as to receive. It will be the reassurance that we the British people have once again understood what is required of us as respected players on the world stage. It will be a sense of gratitude that once again, we have found it in ourselves to love our neighbour.

That's my fervent prayer. Hence my determination to do what I can to support #Remain. Yeats sounds a warning note in his poem "The Second Coming": "The best lack all conviction, while the worst / are filled with passionate intensity." As to the first, we must raise our game and learn from the best Brexiteers how conviction should play a part in what we are doing. As to the second, we must eschew sloganising, vacuous rhetoric and demonising those who differ from us, and try to cultivate, not passionate intensity but an intelligence and wisdom that is both passionate yet courteous. We need good information and reliable evidence. We need rigorous argument. But let them be undergirded by conviction. Let's not be afraid to campaign not just in prose but in poetry. Brexit doesn't have all the best tunes. We don't have to commit the mortal sin of being boring.

Alors mes amis. Bon courage! Et beaucoup de zèle svp! 

*http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/mar/29/remain-campaign-failing-brexiters-wrong-but-passion

The Syrian Refugees and the EU Referendum

Two things have prompted me to write this blog. The first is a series of portraits in today's Guardian by photographer Muhammed Muheisen. They show faces of Syrian refugee children in a makeshift tent camp in the north of Jordan. You never saw such hopelessness written into human eyes. Such faces can no doubt be seen by the thousand in the desperate communities of refugees that are huddled in the eastern borderlands of Europe. 

Human faces are always beautiful, even when disfigured, scarred physically or emotionally by tragedy. The pathos of these portraits somehow added to their beauty. My response to them was complex, hard to put into words. First, a terrible sadness for these forlorn kids. I guessed that these children had done with weeping; probably they were utterly cried-out. For me looking on helplessly, there was not much I could do except try to put myself in their world and say my prayers. 

I've thought about how the photographer has given back to these children their identity. They have names. They have unique faces; each one tells a story. They share their personal thoughts about their homeland in the brief captions. We usually speak about "migrants", "refugees" and "asylum seekers" as collectives. They soon become a crowd - or worse: witness the language of "swarms" used not long ago by someone who should have known better. These are abstractions. The images tell us that they faces belong to persons who are made in the image of God. And if their eyes are filled with blank despair, maybe even God despairs too? That's what I found myself wondering.

The other prompt came in some words I saw quoted in the same paper. A Greek migration officer was commenting on the EU summit that has been trying to address this humanitarian crisis. "My big hope is that Europe will decide to behave like Europeans" he said. There is a common acceptance that Europe's failure so far to respond adequately has been "an insult to our values and civilisation" - this from the EU's top immigration official who was struggling to find the words.

"Behave like Europeans". It's a bitter sarcasm on the virtues we have prized on our continent, among them care, pity (in the best sense of that word), compassion and charity. You could sum these up in the word "humane". One of the founding values of the EU is "solidarity" which means our capacity to see ourselves as part of the human family in its entirety, especially its poor, voiceless, needy and suffering members. This is why Europe's agonised and so far unsuccessful attempts to agree a concerted response to the refugees who arrive on our shores feels so shameful to us who care about being "Europeans". That honoured identity isn't simply a privilege. It comes with a cost, the outward-turned generosity that is necessary if others in our community are to flourish as we do. 

I've constantly pressed in these EU-blogs the absolute priority we must give to loving our neighbour. It's basic to the Judaeo-Christian tradition whose social teaching so inspired the founders of the European project. If ever we were called to do this in practical ways, it's now. I would place a copy of these photographs on the desk of every member of the European Council, the Commission and the Parliament and insist that they contemplated them at the start of every working day. An image speaks more than a thousand words. These tragic faces plead with us not just to feel something but to do something. And that means everyone in affluent Europe. None of us is exempt from making whatever personal response we can even if it can't be more than giving to charities who are supporting refugees. 

As Christian Aid has said pointedly, the European Union has to act together if there is to be any strategic way forward. Now we learn that at the leaders' summit, the EU and Turkey have reached agreement, a "landmark deal". I hope this is good news, but we shall have to wait for the small print to make sure that it is a real breakthrough (and a legal and adequate one), and not simply another cobbled-together compromise. There's been much criticism of the basic idea underlying the proposal, exchanging genuine refugees for those whose asylum applications are turned down and who will be sent back. But even if this is ethical and workable, there still needs to be a bigger plan such as David Miliband has proposed, the opening up of legal routes to bring refugees into Europe without endangering lives through a dangerous sea-voyage and unscrupulous people traffickers. 

Meanwhile, we in Britain who are shortly to vote in the EU referendum are bound to be asking how the migrant crisis will affect both the debate and the outcome. It would be deplorable if a humanitarian catastrophe were used for point-scoring for or against. But at the same time it wold be just as deplorable if our EU debates just sailed on oblivious to this disaster happening on our continent. Not many contributions I've seen on either side have had much to say about the refugees in relation to the referendum. Maybe that's a respectful silence when faced with holy ground. More likely it reflects how difficult it is to know what to say about it. That's forgivable. What would be much worse would be a silence that suggested a shoulder-shrugging attitude that it's not a British problem. After all, didn't the PM remind the summit that the UK has "special status" in the EU? - a statement I have to say I am profoundly uncomfortable with as I've said elsewhere.

My worry is that the terms set for the referendum debate are so circumscribed by "what's good for Britain, what's best for us" that the plight of the needy has been banished out of sight. If so, we should loudly insist that it's brought back into our conversation. A campaign based on self-interest only would be a campaign without a conscience. The Archbishop of Canterbury has been vocal in drawing attention to the refugees, and in this he is in tune with all the churches. I should like to see the referendum debate focus much more on what kind of society we believe the EU could be, and what values we ourselves hold to in the UK. Here's where the migrant crisis is an acid test of our capacity to be human. The referendum is not about abstract issues. It's about people and communities: we who are so privileged, and the many who are not. 

A final thought. Suppose the electorate concluded that the EU's failure to bring its peoples together to act humanely towards its refugees was a conclusive argument for Brexit. Well, I would understand and respect that because it would have been informed in a principled way. It would be a much stronger argument than the (to me) xenophobic fear of "migrant invasion" that tabloid reportage talks up. Similarly, I would find it hard to sympathise with those whose case for Remain is based solely on what's in our own national or personal interests. That wouldn't demonstrate the conscience and compassion we must have when human beings are suffering in our midst. It would fly in the face of what I believe are the best reasons for staying in. I happen to think that when we act together we are in a stronger position to make a difference to desperate human lives. Time will tell if I'm right.

I hope voters are listening out for indicators that humanitarian care is featuring in the way we talk about the referendum and are preparing to vote. We should take the images of those Syrian children with us in our memories when we go into the ballot-box. We must not forget them. If we do, they may never forgive us.